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Heswall hairdresser named and shamed for cropping wages short

TUC calls for more cash to catch greedy bosses

Published on June 9th 2014.

A WIRRAL hairdressers has been named and shamed after topping a nationwide government hit list of minimum wage dodgers.

Christine Cadden and Nicola Banks of Renaissance hairdressers in Heswall, failed to cough up £7310.65 to three of their staff, according a the rogues' gallery of 25 offenders published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

The firms were all caught out by an HMRC helpline started last October in which employees are encouraged to grass up greedy bosses paying below the minimum hourly rate, currently £6.31.

In total more than £4.6 million has been paid in arrears to those affected. However outside of the list of 25 firms published in an unusual step, one or two much bigger employers have escaped the floodlights of publicity. They include an unnamed Premier League football club awarded a penalty of £27,500 which it was ordered to pay to over 3,000 workers after it made deductions for uniforms and travelling time for staff working in hospitality.

Now the TUC has called for greater resources to be given to HMRC inspectors to clamp down on employers who avoid paying staff the statutory minimum hourly rate of pay.

In total more than £4.6 million has been paid in arrears to those affected but plans - as outlined in the Queen's Speech - are under way so that employers will face a £20,000 fine per employee who is underpaid.

Lynn Collins, North West TUC cecretary, said “It is shocking that so many employers – including some who pay their star players millions of pounds a year – are cheating low-paid workers out of the minimum wage.

“The penalties won by HMRC – which the Government has rightly decided should be even bigger – should be a clear deterrent to any bad boss thinking about short changing their staff. We also need to see more of these immoral companies named and shamed.

“HMRC staff deserve credit for winning back millions of pounds for cheated employees but they need greater resources to catch the many minimum wage crooks still out there.”

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Reading about this story on the BBC News site, it would appear that all those named & shamed are small to miniscule businesses. No companies like Amazon, who use "self-employed" drivers who aren't allowed to work elsewhere and who can easily work 12 hour days at a set rate per parcel, making their hourly wages below the minimum wage.

Its obviously another phase of campaigning by hmrc to target specific sectors? Amazon and the like were outed last year, now its smaller outfits. Nothing unusual there?

JEAN VANIERJune 11th 2014.

Nor do they appear to have dealt with charities like L'Arche - who are paid the going rate to provide care to disabled people by local authorities, including Liverpool, and then recruit live-in workers, many from overseas, who work long hours and receive board and lodging and an allowance - well below the minimum wage, alongside properly paid permanent carers who are paid the going rate. The money saved pays the wages of sinecures for the no-doubt deeply spiritual people who thought up this particular wheeze.